“The ISPs have started throttling us.” Quinn’s message chirped in the common chat, clipped and angry. “Remote workers are getting shafted. Contracts will get pulled within the week, if not sooner.”Isia watched the feed scroll past her neuralink, hands moving through the familiar ritual of cleaning her rifle. The Cobra R12 was beautiful in a blunt, utilitarian way. Its design served two purposes, and only two: fire big rounds, keep firing under abuse. If she had cared about firearm lore, she might have nodded at the old nickname people threw around, “the monster sniper of AK-47s,” the kind of rifle meant to take a beating, stand back up, and keep spitting .50 magnums like it was nothing. She had not cared. All that mattered was that the foreman had pressed it into her arms when she walked out of the factory for the last time. The gift had felt heavy then. It felt right now.Normally she waited to clean herself up after a mission. Today she was doing it to keep her thoughts from circling the same drain. Spring out, bolt carrier checked, cloth over the feed ramps until they shone. Oil, just enough to glisten. Breathe in, taste metal and solvent, breathe out, steady.“There goes our main support group’s income.” Vesper cut in on the chat. “Options? We can’t leave them out to dry.”With a firm click, she seated the barrel and gave it the small twist that locked it tight. The motion soothed the pulse behind her eyes.“We could push the intranet as a stopgap for the remote guys,” Quinn said. “Set up a relay port somewhere the ISPs are not watching. But they will spot the spike and kill it before the day’s over.”“I meant viable options, Quinn.” Vesper snapped.